Foundation Knowledge for Delivering County Human Services

Foundation Knowledge for Delivering County Human Services

BASSC Exploratory Training Project Report

Evelyn Hengeveld-Bidmon, EHB Consulting

June 2017

Background

In June 2016, the final report of a study on Bay Area counties’ implementation of AB74 Family Stabilization was presented to the BASSC directors. The study highlighted, among other things, the various staffing positions counties elected to use to administer the Family Stabilization program – from employment services workers to MSW-level social workers. Interviews conducted as part of the project revealed that county managers had differing expectations with regard to what classifications of positions had the level of education, knowledge, and/or skills necessary to serve Family Stabilization clients. These differences prompted the researcher to propose that further research might be conducted to determine what basic competencies, knowledge, and/or skills might be required of any staff person serving a Family Stabilization client. As part of the BASSC directors’ discussion, this question led to a broader consideration regarding what basic level of knowledge or understanding all human services employees should possess in order to provide social services to the public – from reception staff to benefits representatives or eligibility workers, to adult services workers, employment services workers, and social workers. The purpose of this project was to explore that question and identify potential training topics and training modalities that counties might implement to provide employees with this foundational information.

The project objectives were to: 1) capture information regarding what subject areas all human services employees should have a basic understanding of, 2) identify what training is currently being provided within counties with regard to the subject areas identified, 3) research any additional training resources that are available for the subject areas identified, 4) identify the range of potential training modalities that could be employed to deliver such “Foundations” training (e-learning, video and associated readings, curriculum for trainers, etc.), and 5) propose subject areas and potential training modalities to deliver a “Foundations of Human Services” training program to all human services employees.

The value of developing and implementing a “Foundations of Human Services” training program that all levels of human services employees participate in – from reception staff to adult services workers to eligibility workers to child welfare workers – would serve to provide staff with:

• Information about the work of human services that they may not have otherwise acquired through their employment or education,
• Information that helps them understand the work of others in the organization,
• An understanding of how their work contributes to the “whole”, and
• An opportunity to see and understand the work of human services from a “big picture” perspective.

Process

In June 2016, a brainstorming session was held with the BASSC Human Resources Committee to determine what basic knowledge all county human services workers should have in order to best serve the public. The question posed to the committee was, “What knowledge should all social services staff who provide services directly to the public have regarding the conditions that led families to seek services, the challenges they may face, and how best to serve them?” The staff identified as needing this basic knowledge would include employment and benefit services workers, clerical and reception staff, adult, veteran, and family and children services workers, as well as those who supervise, manage, or provide guidance to staff providing services directly to the community. During the discussion and survey of counties conducted afterward, committee members revealed that current practice in many counties is to provide an orientation to the agency/department, and to provide induction or onboarding training to staff in certain positions – namely new benefit services/eligibility, employment services and child welfare employees. Some counties also provide induction training for adult services employees. Few counties, however, ensure that all staff who interact with the public participate in mandatory training that both orients them to their job and role in the organization, and also provides them with a foundational understanding of the function of the public social services agency and the issues impacting the people they serve.

The brainstorming session captured ideas for training/orientation topics that would ensure that all human or social services workers had a common understanding of this core knowledge. The session resulted in a list of topics that were clustered into eight subject areas. These clusters, comprised of thirty-nine distinct topics, were presented to the BASSC directors for input, prioritization and approval as the areas to focus on when considering an approach to ensuring all human services workers have the basic knowledge needed to provide high quality service to the public. The clustered content areas, listed in the order of priority as identified by the BASSC directors are:

• Service provision,
• Conditions impacting families (health, mental health, substance abuse, etc.),
• Poverty – conditions and impacts,
• Environmental and cultural impacts on families,
• Attitudes and ethics,
• Systems issues and impacts,
• Working in a county human services organization, and
• The history of social services.

With the list of subject matter areas agreed upon, counties were surveyed to determine what training and/or orientation materials were already in existence and being used throughout the Bay Area to provide employees with a foundational understanding of public human services (see Attachment 1for a summary of survey responses). Follow up interviews provided more in-depth information on what materials currently exist across the region, and whether or not they were easily transferable for use in another county. In addition to the interview process, some counties provided their training materials to the researcher for review.

In addition to determining what resources exist within counties, two primary training vendors used in the Bay Area, UC Davis and the Bay Area Academy, were contacted to identify further training resources in the subject matter areas or clusters.

Findings

As previously mentioned, the brainstorming process with BASSC human resources staff, along with input from the BASSC directors resulted in thirty-nine topics clustered into eight subject matter areas of which human services employees should have a basic knowledge. Surveys and follow-up interviews revealed the following:

1) While nearly all Bay Area counties provide some training on the topics in the cluster areas, much of the training is done as a part of an agency orientation or larger induction curriculum and is not documented in training materials, but rather mentioned as part of classroom discussion.

2) Where training materials do exist, most are in the form of PowerPoint presentations, hand-outs, guides, or other materials that require an instructor who is knowledgeable in the topic to present them. In other words, they are not easily transferable to a trainer in another county without extensive support such as an instructor’s manual or a training guide for the trainer, and they are not able to be used as a self-guided training.

3) Though some training sessions are ‘self-contained’ and usable without an instructor to guide the learner (meaning a worker could access and learn from them independently) those trainings are generally housed within the individual county’s intranet or have been developed with a proprietary technology and are not easily transferred to another county.

4) Many of the trainings are not mandatory, and are therefore not attended by all employees. Lastly, materials available through the vendors have all the same limitations for sharing as do the ones within counties.

It is worth noting that the BASSC Human Resources Committee is currently focusing on a project that would make sharing online training materials across counties possible, but it is not clear if existing online training content/activities could be converted in order to be usable on the new platform. Should this project result in the improved capacities of counties to share existing electronic/online training materials, training content in the clustered topic areas could be replicated utilizing the shared technology.

Proposed Training Content

Based on discussions in both the BASSC Human Resources and BASSC Directors Committees, counties have identified eight content areas in which human services employees should have knowledge. Though some materials covering these topics do exist within Bay Area counties, they are limited – either in available content or transferability. No single county has materials covering topics in all eight content areas. In order to ensure that all public human services agency employees throughout the Bay Area are exposed to the subject matter necessary to have a foundational knowledge of the field and issues relevant to their work, it is recommended that a “Foundations of Human Services” curriculum be developed that can be used within a classroom setting, or to guide individual learning, The eight clustered subject areas have several individual topics captured within them. The following section proposes content for each cluster. Attachment 2 provides preliminary content outlines for each of the clusters.

1. Service Provision

Understanding the range of ways staff may (be expected to) engage with clients is the focus of this cluster. Most county induction trainings cover the technical skills needed to provide services – how to enter information into client database or eligibility determination tools, an orientation to the work and the organization, and provide basic information about customer service. Some have even developed highly structured approaches to service provision within some divisions within the agency. Santa Cruz County’s “We CARE” model is an example of this. But a more comprehensive understanding of service delivery to all employees – especially those who are not provided with a standardized induction or onboarding training would help to ensure consistency of quality in services provided throughout the organization, by all levels of employees. Training topics in focused on service provision beyond the basics of the expectations of the job might include information on the following: crisis intervention, diffusing a hostile or agitated client or situation, motivational interviewing or appreciative inquiry for both case managing and non-case-managing staff, personal and field safety, understanding one’s own and another’s secondary trauma, effective communication, strength-based relationships/approaches, and working as a team – both with coworkers and with clients or families.

1. Conditions Impacting Families

Many of the families served through public social services agencies experience multiple challenges beyond having limited financial resources necessary to meet their basic needs. These include having a health or mental health issue that impacts their ability to be self-sufficient, or living with substance abuse or addiction – in oneself or in family member, being the victim of domestic abuse, or having experienced direct or secondary trauma. While staff may refer clients to community- or county-based providers who address these barriers to self-sufficiency, they also need a basic understanding of how these issues may affect a client’s ability to utilize and benefit from the services they provide. Topics covered in a training for this cluster could include the causes and impacts conditions such as mental and physical health issues, substance abuse, domestic abuse, trauma (current, historical, secondary, and retraumatization) have on families, and what resources exist to help families experiencing one or more of these conditions.

1. Poverty – Conditions and Impacts

In order to have an understanding of the clients they serve, human services workers should have an awareness of the social determinants of poverty, the challenges faced by people living in poverty, and how living in poverty affects the well-being and the opportunities available for those who experience it. This training content would address the causes of poverty, the myths and realities of poverty, what it means to live in poverty, and the impact it has on children and families, as well as provide basic statistical information on poverty in the county or region and in the United States at large.

1. Environmental and Cultural Impacts on the Families We Serve

Families served by public social services agencies may come from a range of cultural backgrounds, and social environments. These may be similar to, or vastly different from, those of the workers who serve them. Having an understanding of the impacts environment and culture has on clients better enables workers to provide services to a diverse population. These impacts both shape the challenges clients may face as well as the resiliency and strengths they possess. An overview of this subject might provide an introduction for a broader cultural competence training program. While all counties surveyed reported having a cultural competency training, they are typically geared toward understanding what culture is, and what it means to provide culturally competent services. The focus of this cluster would be to help staff understand the impact social environment and culture has on families

, including factors that impact their resiliency, the strengths they possess, and the challenges they may face.

1. Attitudes and Ethics

County social services workers come to public service from a variety of backgrounds – cultural, educational, and employment. Working for a public agency, or being a public servant, comes with a set of expectations regarding competence, professionalism, level of accountability, and conduct. In addition to being competent in their jobs, public human services workers are expected to serve with integrity and honesty, treat all members of the public with dignity and respect, and provide equitable treatment to everyone they serve. In order to do this effectively, human services workers must have an awareness of their own biases, and understand the distinction between their “personal self” and their “professional self” with regard to their values, expectations, and standards. They must also be aware of issues of social justice, potential conflicts of interest they might experience as a part of their work, the concept and practice of cultural humility, the power of the language they use when talking with clients, how to set appropriate boundaries with those they serve as well as those they work with, and the need to hold information about people they work with in the strictest confidence. Therefore, this cluster would address expectations regarding professionalism and behavior in the workplace, and would include topics such as: cultural humility, social justice, confidentiality, or professional responsibility, conflict of interest, and setting boundaries.

1. Systems Issues and Impacts

While public social services agencies are charged with providing safety net services to all members of the community who qualify for and/or need them, both formal and informal structures exist that may impact workers’ ability to do so. These may include things such as the location of services – services that are accessed through offices located great distances from those who need them may not be fully utilized, or there may be other inequalities that exist and which are beyond an individual worker’s control. These may include legislative or regulatory mandates that disadvantage clients, or limited resources necessary to address a need. Additionally, historic or cultural standards may lead to disproportional treatment of minority groups. This, in addition to workers’ own explicit or implicit biases, impacts how services are provided and received by different groups of people. The training content would address systems issues and impacts that focus on place-based services, disproportionality, and structural inequality.

1. Working in a Public Human Services Organization

Though many human services workers may have worked in other social service organizations before coming to public service, and therefore may have been exposed to the content in the other training topics listed above, working in a public agency is unique. All county human services organizations are part of a larger county government structure, and they carry out the mandates of not only what local elected officials require of them, but also the mandates of the state and federal governments. Understanding how their agency functions as a part of the larger system helps workers understand how and why services, practice, requirements, and even their salary and benefits are determined. In many cases, workers learn these things over time, via direct experience – they are directed how to complete time studies, admonished to complete data entry thoroughly, or occasionally asked to volunteer to work overtime to address a backlog of work. Learning about how a human service organization is structured, what impacts its operations, how it is funded, conditions of work, the roles of various employee classifications, and how to communicate across the organization early in their employment serve to help employees function as an integral and effective part of the whole. Since both funding and types of services provided are directly related to the demographics of the community being served, an awareness of key county-specific data – the numbers or percentages of people qualifying for public services, the number of clients served by the organization, the number or percentage of eligible people who are not receiving services, and so forth, provide useful contextual information for the human services worker. Training topics in this cluster that would help workers understand and navigate complex county human services might include: community demographics, rates of poverty and unemployment, and available community resources or providers serving those in need, county government structure, agency/department structure, and public human services funding.